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Saturday, May 16, 2015

Westfield has made the national news scene and its not for its lovely award winning downtown, or its ranked educational system.
Westfield has drawn the attention of national news outlets because of a controversial art exhibit that appeared at the annual art show at Westfield High School last week. The art show displays artwork from Westfield students in grades pre-K thru 12. One particular piece of art titled "Law Enforcement - Police Brutality" has garnered national news coverage due to the controversial subject.TFoTM supports the 1st Amendment of the United States Constitution, and believes freedom of speech to be a protected right despite the inflammatory nature of this "piece of art." However, without providing both sides of the issue, the "artists" appear to have thrown a blanket over the entire law enforcement community.
The incendiary nature of the artwork should be questioned and those responsible for its creation should explain why such a topic was chosen with a one-sided view.
I wonder how accommodating the Westfield High School art teacher, administration, and Board of Education Superintendant would have been had students decided to create "art" depicting an adult teacher engaging in misconduct with a teenage student?
What would the reaction be if an "artist" wanted to display a water color painting, of an elementary school teacher smoking marijuana after coaching a high school sports team. According to a source within the Westfield law enforcement community, what is most disturbing to some is that a retired Westfield police supervisor's daughter contributed to the art exhibit.

In other police news, Westfield police department Captain Chris Battiloro strapped on a backpack landscaping blower to tidy up the front of police headquarters while on duty. Does that mean taxpayers can expect members of the Westfield Department of Public Works to be patrolling the streets of Westfield in the near future?

As usual, WHS has turned a blind eye to the recreational drug use at its school. As usual, WHS turned a blind eye to the students having sex in their cars on Codding Road. As expected, WHS welcomed back one of its own dope smoking teachers after he completed PTI. Margaret Dolan and Roy Clemmons should both be ashamed of the negative attention brought to WHS and fired for their lack of thought. Next thing you know they will be having our students write letters to killers on Death Row wishing them good health.

"A New Jersey public school teacher who instructed her third-grade students to write “get well” letters to a convicted cop killer was fired at a raucous school board meeting that stretched into the wee hours of Wednesday morning, despite her pleas that “there’s a community behind me.”

Marylin Zuniga, a first-year teacher who drew widespread condemnation for assigning her young charges the task of writing to Mumia Abu-Jamal, was canned at the meeting of the Orange Board of Education, the Star-Ledger of Newark reported."